Story Telling Can Be a
Powerful Marketing Tool

After All, Who Doesn’t Love a Good Story?

For centuries, stories have shaped our thoughts and our
actions. For example, stories from the Bible, Aesop’s Fables, and stories we
heard at home and in the classroom helped form our attitudes and our values,
influenced our behavior, motivated us, and more. Using story telling in your
marketing can be equally powerful.

Story telling is effective because stories:

• Help capture and hold the attention
of your audience.

• Are relatable. If you choose the right stories, potential
clients are apt to recognize themselves in your stories, which will make it
easier for them to understand how they might benefit from working with your
business.

• Increase the credibility of your marketing messages.
Potential clients are apt to discredit or tune out marketing that simply touts
your products and services, spouts off statistics, or tells people why your
firm is better than the competition. Today’s consumers are a pretty skeptical
bunch, so trying something different can pay dividends.

• Make it easier to begin a two-way conversation with
members of your target audience.

• Help humanize your business.

There are many ways to incorporate story telling into your
marketing. Here are a few:

• Add them to your web site. Use stories to illustrate the
benefits of your firm’s products and services; to turn your employees’ bios
from dry recitations of their education and credentials into interesting
anecdotes that make people think “She sounds interesting; I’d like to work with
her;” or to relay the history of your company as an emotional narrative.

• Liven up your blog posts with stories.

• Use stories to help explain your points during media
interviews. Short, well-told stories can convey information much more
effectively than long, drawn out explanations.

• Share stories in your newsletters. For example, in each
newsletter, tell the story of a challenge one of your clients faced and how you
resolved it.

• Create storytelling online videos. Post them on YouTube
and on your website.

• Build stories into your speeches.

• Share stories during your webinars and during face-to-face
meetings with potential new clients.

• If you write a book to help promote your business, add
stories to each chapter. Not only will they make your book more interesting,
but they will also make it easier for your readers to understand the
information in your book and apply it to their own lives.